The gaming community is undoubtedly a passionate group. But Jimmy Kimmel recently found himself a bit shocked at just how vitriolic they can be when someone makes a joke about their favorite pass time — or even their second favorite. The late night talk show host recently found himself in the firing line as gamers spewed a stream of hateful YouTube comments after the comedian mocked the new YouTube Gaming platform in a spoof video.
For those unaware, YouTube Gaming offers a massive platform for the extremely popular hobby of gaming spectating: the service allows users to watch power gamers play. It sounds pretty silly to a non-gamer. But, as many of the less-angry gamers analogized in their comments on the video, it can be likened to someone sitting at home watching sports versus actually going out and playing sports.
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Kimmel, however, makes the argument that sitting and watching someone playing games is yet another step removed from human activity. He likened it more to watching someone play Fantasy Football, rather than the actual sport.
The spoof video, aired during an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live last week, totally clowned on the concept. The original video depicted a number of excited men in an infinite loop: one watching another playing a video game, followed by third watching the second watching the first play and, so on. “When I was a kid,” said Kimmel, “the only time you watched other people play video games was when you ran out of quarters.”
Clearly, such commentary truly dated the 40-something-year-old TV personality, and left things wide open for millennials, avid gamers, and the ever-ready horde of angsty YouTube commenters to call Kimmel everything from a “stupid fat boy” to a “stupid bearded gorilla,” to “irrelevant old man,” as well as wishing on the host everything from death, to disease, including YouTubers telling him to “get cancer” and AIDS.
The original video, says Kimmel, has become the most disliked video (rated by the number of “thumbs down”) the show has ever had. (At the time of this writing, it’s already closing in on 780,000 views and has surpassed 96,000 thumbs down.)
Going viral is viral, but Kimmel clearly awakened the beast in some of the most angry and angsty commenters on the web, many of them taking things way too far. Perhaps it is time for some of these commenters to get out, smell the roses, and, hopefully, find a sense of humor.
You can watch the original skit Kimmel posted below.
